


Ice in His Bones

by hearteating



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Belonging, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Dreams, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearteating/pseuds/hearteating
Summary: The Arctic speaks to Cornelius Hickey, and he listens.





	Ice in His Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dottore_polidori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottore_polidori/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you like this.

Hickey is spitting mad when he realizes the true destination of the _HMS Terror_ is not the sunshine-soaked islands he’d killed a man for, but instead the freezing desolate Arctic. Months he’ll spend, if not years, in the cold, cramped confines of a ship, surrounded on all sides by the sort of men who willingly signed on for this expedition. No chance for desertion until they were north, and by then, who’d want to leave? At least the ships provide shelter and food.

Still, he must make the best of a bad situation, and so he eats his anger, crushes it and swallows it and lets it strengthen him. Opportunities can be found anywhere, if a man keeps a watchful eye and careful ear.

 

Hickey, to his surprise, flourishes in the Arctic. The cold seeps into him, freezing him from the outside in, until he feels as strong as the pack ice that surrounds the ships. He grows bolder with it, not that he was ever a timid man. He presses his luck as often as he presses his prick into his Billy, and finds himself rewarded for it more often than not. Of course there are slips here and there, but he manages to right himself and correct course. The better he does, the more he wants.

He shares a drink with Captain Crozier, a moment of shared humanity Hickey files away for future use.

 

It’s after he first sees the beast that the dreams start. At first he thinks them fever dreams, the result of his lashing, but they continue to come and come, even after his backside has healed. The dreams are cold and wild, sometimes full of blood and sometimes full of emptiness. He dreams of a pair of broken scales, of decay, of men carved from bone. He relishes them as the ice in his bones drives deeper, down to his core.

 

He dreams of the night he murdered the man who was Cornelius Hickey (he is Cornelius Hickey now; you take a man's life, you own what was his, whether that be his gold or his name). Hickey guts the Irishman, and when he looks at the dying man’s face, it is Captain Crozier instead. Hickey cuts out the man’s heart and places it in the empty space behind his own ribs.

When he wakes, he understands.

 

Sir John is dead and Fitzjames is a fool, but Crozier has the ice in his bones, same as Hickey. He resists it, tries to melt it out with whiskey and heavy coats and bluster, but it’s there anyway. Hickey can see the truth. Crozier belongs to the Arctic; he knows it and treats it with the respect it is due. He does not share his fellows’ dreams of conquering such a magnificent land. Both Hickey and he know such a thing isn’t possible.

The land here is pure. Not in the hateful, holy way spoken of by Irving and his fellow ilk, but whole and vast and eternal. And it hungers. It takes and takes, consuming all that tred it, and still it wants more. Lady Silence and her people want the men of _Terror_ and _Erebus_ to leave, to deprive the land and beast of the intruders. Hickey would gladly feed the beast and the land the Englishmen they desire. The men are only tools, only meat, after all. They don’t have ice in their bones.

 

The others sicken from scurvy or the tinned food or the cold, teeth and hair falling out, gums bleeding, bruises blooming on their skin, reminding Hickey of overripe fruit. If he pressed a thumb against one of those bruises, he wonders, would it simply split the skin, cause the tender, rotten flesh to spill out like so much pulp? Would it taste sweet or rancid?

The others sicken, and Hickey has never felt better.

 

The cold no longer affects him. The icy winds the men complain of might as well be the balmiest May breeze. He makes sure to wear his pea coat and knitted cap, so as not to invite questions, but he does not wrap himself in layers of furs and gloves and hats the way the others do. Why smother himself when he could be free?

 

Mutiny is surprisingly simple, even with Crozier suspicious. The men are already restless and desperate and afraid. Hickey simply feeds those fears, nourishes them with poisonous words and insinuations and the truth. He promises them fresh meat.

Hickey doesn’t worry when Crozier sentences him to hang; he would have done worse in Crozier’s place for sure. He knows, too, that the land will not let him die, not like this. And he is right. The beast tears through the camp, and Hickey escapes, along with the other mutineers.

He feels hunger as much as he feels the cold nowadays, which is to say, he doesn’t. But the flesh has needs, and his men have flesh, and so he puts them to use. The first taste of fresh meat is salty and tough and slightly sour; his Billy isn't half as tender dead as he’d been alive. Hickey could get used to this taste. The others, hungry and desperate, eat quickly and without enjoyment. Not so Hickey. Every bite binds him more to this land, to the beast.

 

He dreams of the beast, and that he is the beast. He looks through beast-eyes and sees himself, as cold and hard and pale as the landscape around them. Hickey offers his beast-self something red and hot and alive, something of himself.

When he wakes, he knows.

He needs Crozier. They two are the only men here who truly understand this desolate, wonderful land. Hickey wants his next actions to be properly appreciated.

 

The man who is now Cornelius Hickey cuts out his sharp tongue as the Tuunbaq nears. He offers it to the beast, triumphant. Soon they will be bound, and his connection to the ice will be perfect and whole. Their hunger will be one and the same.

He holds out his hand, tongue steaming in the cold, and the beast bites.


End file.
